War Core, Chapter 23.

Chapter 23.

“Now, before you ask, yes, this is your real body. The GCA reconstructs us when we win a campaign and are granted leave. You should also know you don’t get to keep it. When your leave is over, back into the War Core blender you will go,” the man who called himself Valery said.

“Where are we?” Hugh asked. There were so many questions, he didn’t know where to start first. The room he was in resembled a small hospital room but instead of a bed, it had a War Core pod in the center of it. Other than that, everything looked like the furniture and fixtures from a shabby hospital.

“We are on Harmony Station, the one and only vacation spot for a War Core to visit. Like I said earlier, my name is Valery Akalov and I’ve been allowed to show you around. There was a pass for leave burning a hole in my pocket and when I heard you had won your first campaign, I was offered the opportunity to be your guide through this process,” Valery said.

“Hey, I watched you in that battle you won to give us a chance at another core,” Hugh said, leaving out the part where the man’s victory had also resulted in Hugh being killed and shoved into said core.

“Yes, I didn’t know who would be selected, of course, but I have asked for updates on your progress. We sacrificed a lot to give you a chance and I wanted to make sure those sacrifices weren’t in vain,” Valery said. Hugh remembered the bodies being pulled from the Russian combat pods, and this man’s comments after the fight.

“I’ll do my best to not dishonor what you’ve done, but I can’t exactly say I’m happy to be turned into a machine,” Hugh said.

“Me either, when I was chosen, the KGB grabbed me from my auto repair shop and threw me into the machine. It wasn’t exactly an easy transition,” the man said.

“Wait, KGB? How long ago was it when you were taken?” Hugh asked.

“Ah, yes, you see, we don’t really age when we’re a machine, but I was taken in 1964. I was thirty-eight years old, a retired army mechanic trying to make ends meet. Things weren’t so hard for me, I didn’t have a family, no children, just an ex-wife I was fine with never seeing again,” Valery said.

“I’m assuming your advisors kept you up to date on things going on in the world?” Hugh asked, a bit concerned that decades would pass, and he wouldn’t know what was going on with the world around him.

“Yes, not so much information was given to us until the fall of communism, but after that, the military does a pretty good job at keeping me up to date and I have access to all the media sources. I think you will find that your interest in such things will diminish given how our new lives progress, but I still like to keep up with the news. Now, enough boring talk of news and the dates we were abducted for alien amusement, let me tell you what you can do here,” Valery said. Hugh picked up on the alien amusement comment, reminding him of the theory that Maddison had, with all this being entertainment for the GCA.

“Sounds good, I assume my reward doesn’t mean I just sit my rebuilt body inside a hospital room for three days,” Hugh replied.

“No, you get to have some fun, but you must also be on your toes. I suggest you use the restroom here, and then I will treat you to a meal. There is a restaurant that I preferer on the next level down,” Valery said. Hugh did have to go, and he could say at least one benefit of being a War Core was the lack of bodily functions. Of course, that also meant he didn’t have a body. There was a small hospital restroom near some shelves full of old bandages and IV containers. The inside of the bathroom Hugh found a normal toilet, small sink, and that crappy soap they always have in office buildings.

“Hey, Valery, is the whole station like this?” Hugh asked as he left the restroom, the visit confirmed his body functioned just like had back on earth.

“No, they load up something that they think will be familiar to you. Outside is a whole other story, follow me,” Valery said, opening the door and walking through without waiting to see if Hugh was following him.

Hugh was led down a long hospital hallway, with several doors on each side. Valery told him this section held six rooms to rebuild bodies for Earth’s cores to use when they visited. Currently, they were the only two from Earth, whether that was due to a string of defeats or if it was normal, Hugh didn’t know and didn’t fell like asking. At the end of the hall, large swing out doors led into the station itself. After passing through, Hugh stopped and stared at the sight in front of him.

Lights, holographic display ads, and a bustle of activity assailed Hugh’s senses. He was on overload, trying to process everything he was seeing. Something must have been done to his mind, despite his body looking the same. An implant that allowed him to hear and understand the languages being spoken around him by the myriad of creatures making their way through the place. There were bipedal humanoids of different flavors, hulking behemoths on varying numbers of legs, and even tiny hover cars that must have carried even smaller passengers about the station.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, just follow me for now and don’t engage anyone in conversation. The place looks like an amusement park had a child with a shopping mall, but there are dangers lurking under the surface. Let’s just get to the restaurant and we can chat in relative peace,” Valery said. Hugh nodded and followed the hairy Russian, concerned a bit at what dangers might be lurking. Several of the races looked plain evil and were the stuff of nightmares. He could have done without seeing the eight-foot-tall spiders with the heads of a bull that looked hungrily down on the humans.

His companion didn’t look concerned in the slightest, and Hugh figured that was a good attitude to have. Don’t look like prey, look like something that didn’t care about what was walking around him. Several restaurants and bars were placed around, the implant in his head displaying their bill of fare, highlighting which options were suitable for his body to consume. Other shops offered things that were much more interesting than a meal or a drink, they offered upgrades to his forces. Hugh held off on any questions, allowing Valery to lead him to the spot he had picked out.

Going down a level proved to be an experience in its own right. They didn’t wait for an elevator or take a stairway, the simply walked into an open tube that let them drop down or hover up to the level of their choice. If he had still been a kid, Hugh could have ridden that thing all day, it was better than a roller coaster. Eventually they made their way toward a place that looked like a mix of a fifty’s diner and a dive bar. Inside, Valery guided Hugh to them to a booth near the back and gestured toward the interactive tabletop.

A menu was brought up when he concentrated, showing a selection of favorite earth dishes. Not sure where to start, Hugh went with something familiar, a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but a serving drone soon brought them two trays, his order, and a meat lovers pizza for Valery. The burger looked and smelled like he expected, and his new stomach growled to remind him there was nothing in it. His first bite was heaven, the taste was more than what he expected, reminding him of the small burger place that his dad used to take him to on the weekends.

“It’s good, yes? I don’t know how they do it, but somehow, they can access what you expect something to taste like and match it exactly. Don’t get locked into your old favorites, though, some of the other offerings are amazing as well. Do you know, this is the first place I’ve ever eaten a pizza in? Pizza restaurants weren’t a big thing in small soviet towns. I’ve tried all the American favorites as well as Russian dishes that remind me of my mama’s cooking,” Valery said, a faraway look in his eye as he mentioned family that were long gone from the realm of the living.

“It’s amazing, but why are we here?” Hugh asked.

“I assume you mean why Harmony Station, not this particular restaurant. The GCA has made this a sort of gathering place for all the War Cores and offers us several temptations to pry us from our reward points. That’s where we should start, you have reward points from your victory?” Valery asked.

“Yeah, they are used to level up your core, whatever that means,” Hugh replied.

“Yes, as your core levels, you will gain rewards. At first, they are small rewards, minor upgrades to various things, but at higher levels, much more powerful options will be found. It appears that every five levels represents these greater rewards. Here you can spend those reward points to purchase upgrades for various things not offered during your leveling. But therein lies the problem, if you spend them here, they’re gone from your pool,” Valery warned.

“So, what happens if you spend them all, do you lose your level, or is there some kind of penalty?” Hugh asked.

“You will not lose the levels you have gained, but it will make gaining that next level much more difficult,” Valery replied.

“So, does it matter? Are the things here that much worse than the items gained by leveling?” Hugh asked.

“Not worse, just different. I say it’s a trap because the points you spend here won’t permanently affect your forces, they do other things that are helpful, but not like the continuous upgrades that leveling provides. You’ll see when we go shopping later. A War Core that spends all his money here on the station will find himself falling further and further behind the other cores. For now, your first battle matched you with a similarly skilled opponent. Your next campaign will up the potential power of your foe, and after that, your sector of the galaxy is open season. Cores that are much higher level might challenge you and every tech upgrade you can get for your forces may be the difference between life and death,” Valery said.

“Ok, I don’t want to be at a disadvantage, I’ll just keep my points and level up as quickly as I can,” Hugh said.

“Oh, you’ll see, my new friend, the things offered are very tempting. I should also mention that there are other ways to earn more reward points. They can be traded between the various cores, buying and selling their services. In my last campaign, I was fighting a dangerous opponent with significant upgrades, to help counter that, I purchased the service of a mercenary group that had skills to counter what I was facing. It was expensive, but it beat losing the fight,” Valery told him.

“Does the GCA allow that? I would think that could skew the battle too far in favor of one participant,” Hugh asked.

“It is allowed, and the inclusion of an outside force will greatly affect the pre-battle negotiations. If you bring mercenaries into the fight, the GCA will typically give more weight to your opponent’s preferences for the coming fight. It’s not unheard of to hire the services of high tier units from an elite force, only to have the level cap of the fight exclude them from the battle. You would still have to pay the mercenaries, but you would be paying them to sit on the sidelines,” Valery said.

“I’m beginning to see how important the pre-battle negotiations can be. There wasn’t an option for mercenaries or anything like that when I fought before,” Hugh said.

“Yes, the ability to hire outside forces isn’t unlocked until level five. There are restrictions on battle parameters that loosen as you get higher up. It’s also not strictly tied to your level, the number of battles you’ve participated in also plays a role, otherwise we could just spend all our points here on the station, keep our levels low, and never worry about the greater threats,” Valery told him.

“Why don’t the more powerful forces just crush us then? We’re new to the fight, so I’m sure there are others with much higher levels than can stomp on any of our cores,” Hugh asked, hoping there was something preventing some level one hundred core with complex upgrades from just owning all of Earth.

“A combination of things prevents that, the first being that the more powerful cores are typically too busy fending off challengers or digging into territory much more appealing than our little section of the universe. You see, our entire territory only encompasses a few worlds that can sustain life. There are a few dozen or so that could be easily terraformed into something useable, but we’re centuries away from learning how to do that. Most of the attackers targeting us are of similar size, looking to secure a buffer between other threats and recover ground lost in other conflicts,” Valery said.

“Ok, so we’re in the low rent section of the universe and aren’t that appealing. Is there nothing else other than the poor property location keeping the wolves at bay?” Hugh asked.

“Yes, when the level gap between two battling cores is large enough, the GCA will often allow multiple low-level cores to battle against one higher level one. It still greatly favors the more powerful core but gives us small fry’s a fighting chance. Think of it like a professional boxer facing a normal guy off the street, the normal guy gets to bring a friend or two, which will improve his chances, but I would still bet on the pro boxer to win,” Valery told him.

“So, the burger was great, what do we do now?” Hugh asked, wanting to not think about battles for a bit. This was supposed to be leave, and while he wanted to squeeze all the information he could from his compatriot, he didn’t want to depress himself either.

“Many things, we’ll check out the games, but before that, I’ll take you to a shop. It might be better if I go with you on your first shopping trip, keep you grounded enough to not buy foolish items,” Valery said.

“Sounds good, I also have to pick up some reward thing, do you know where we do that?” Hugh asked.

“Yes, there is a GCA hospitality center on each level. You can collect what my gaming advisor calls a ‘loot box’ there. Those things are usually useless, but occasionally some good upgrade can be found,” Valery told him.

“Sounds like a plan, collect my loot box and then I can do my adult supervised shopping,” Hugh said, starting to get more excited at finding what was available.